Re: The Confused Budget Track Clio! * Inc 197 Cup Cage Content*
Friday 29[SUP]th[/SUP] June 2012
Right so after work I thought I would continue with the car as I had some goodies to put on it.
First of all I thought I would tackle the rear suspension. So I jacked the car up and put stands underneath the sills.
First thing I did was remove the rear shocks and rear springs.
I needed to fit the adjuster platform to the rear beam but as I had painted it, it didn’t fit. So I removed the paint from around the lip.
I then bolted the adjuster and the main thread to the underside of the rear beam and put the rubber on the top of the mount and placed them in the correct position.
The next step was to put the new shocks in place. I did remember from doing a mates 172 ages ago that you have to shave a little bit off of one of the rubbers to make them fit. So I did this:
I trial fitted them and had no joy so I removed them again and then got a rasp to them to take a little bit more off. This was the end result.
I trial fitted them again and had no joy. By this point I was getting the hump so I walked away from the car (this was a mistake). I very quickly got roped into removing three of their doors off of the log cabin and shaving the bottoms of them so they shut nicely as currently they are getting stuck.
After doing this I was a bit calmer and thought it would be a good idea to get stuck into the car again.
I removed the mounts and then did this to them as a last result to get them fitted.
Once this was done I fitted them once again and this time I had enough thread to get the mount through the hole! Happy days! With the mounts on I chucked the wheel back on and lowered her to the ground.
I gave the shocks a bounce up and down to try and get them to settle but instead of the shocks compressing the top rubber (inside the car) that goes between the chassis and the nut was moving on compression. I wasn’t very happy with this but left it to address at a later date as they had already pissed me off today. Another thing was that the rear ride height was way to high for me. I know I have to refit the fuel tank and a few other bits but that is not going to make that much of a difference. It looks like the rear adjuster will be coming out when I sort the shock issue.
I then turned my attention to the front shocks.
I trial fitted my AST top mount to find this:
This topped it off for me today as I couldn’t use the Gaz top hat as the diameter of the hole in the top was not big enough.....great.
I pretty much packed up for the day after that as I was on the verge of getting a hammer to make the rest of the parts fit the car.
Saturday 30[SUP]th[/SUP] June 2012
Reasonably early start for a weekend and I had the pleasure of Beeson’s help again.
First of all I showed him the problem with the AST’s and the Gaz coilovers.
He tried thinking of different ways to get around it but I wasn’t particularly happy with machining the AST top hat (as this would really weaken it). Also the Gaz top hat had strengthening on the underside so I was not really happy with drilling out the hole and doing that. The only option was to make the ID of the spring bigger. It was only 1.5mm different (approximately) so I set about using a file and enlarging the hole.
Beeson very kindly had brought two good condition rear rubbers to replace the ones I hacked so he removed them and replaced the bottom mounts with his ones and only put the washer (and not the top rubber mount) on the top. We did the suspension travel test and unlike last time the shock stayed against the chassis and the shock compressed rather than moved.
Beeson then came in and grabbed a file and set to work on the other spring. I had already been filing for about 30 minutes and could not see light at the end of the tunnel. After Beeson doing it for about 10 minutes I basically said f**k this im going into work to use one our our air compressed hand held grinders.
The plan was for Beeson to remove the rear adjusters while I was gone but before he could make a start he checked his phone and realised he was 30 mins late from picking up his other half.....OOPS.
Anyway I went into work armed with the springs and top hats. 30 minutes later and I was left with this:
Whilst I was in work I did manage to get the 4[SUP]th[/SUP] mount sand blasted to remove all of the rust and s**t. Nice and clean.
I then built up the shocks with a bit of grease and put the top mounts in place.
I was just about to go and start fitting them when I thought it would be best to put a bit of black hammerite on the spring to prevent it from rusting and going crap (plus I didn’t want it to stick to the top hat).
Before:
After:
I had forgotten that Beeson had not removed the rear adjusters so whilst the jack and the axle stands where at the back of the car I thought I would remove them.
So I removed the adjusters and the threaded tube that the adjuster sits on. As the adjuster has been removed I though it would be best to put the OE rubber in place so the spring does not ruin the rear beam platform.
One OE Rubber Spring Platform and the adjustable tube that the adjuster sits on.
One hole cut:
The finished article:
I then did the same for the other side and fitted them to the car along with the spring.
From this:
To This:
Lowered the car back on the floor and this was the rear arch gap. Wasn’t too pleased with this as it doesn’t appear to have moved, even with the adjuster removed. Perhaps it will go back down a bit once I fit a few more things to the car.
Next I made a start on the front coilovers.
So jacked the car up, removed the front shock, replaced with the coilover and fixed the AST top mount in place as well. I had preset the measurement from the bottom thread of the coilover to the locking platform at 80mm just to see how high/low the car would be. It was a complete guess as the AST top mount is a lot shallower than the gaz item. As you can see in the below pics:
Anyway coilover in place and bolted up
Before jacking the car down I loctited in the four remaining wheel studs that I bought off of Andy (just because the wheel was off). I still need to buy 4 more studs and nuts for the nearside front as I had only purchased 12 off of Andy as he was going to run Locking Wheel Nuts.
I then did all this again to the nearside (apart from fitting the studs and nuts I haven’t got yet)
Lowered the car on the floor and this was the end result.
A bit low for my liking.
That was pretty much it for the work down my nans as I had to go down to my mates yard use his plasma cutter to try and remove some more of this material from the manifold flange I am making.
Didn’t get any pictures of this apart from this:
Unfortunately its not as neat as I had hoped and we had a few problems with his new compressor as it wasn’t set up correctly. But it has still removed a lot of material that I did not want. WINNER.
After this I called it a day and got home to find a parcel waiting for me:
The remaining door locks to complete the set! Thanks a bunch Williamspaul much appreciated. Now all I need to do is fit them and get another key cut so that if I do snap it again I have a spare!
Sunday 1[SUP]st[/SUP] July 2012
Wasn’t feeling a 100% today but none the less I wanted some progress on the car!
The freshly sand blasted 4[SUP]th[/SUP] mount that I had previously done at work yesterday got a little bit of the clear lacquer treatment.
Whilst that was drying it fitted the boot lock and the passenger lock to complete the set
I then tried to remove the remaining rubber out of the rear exhaust mount whilst the 4[SUP]th[/SUP] mount was still drying.
After about 5 minutes I got bored (didn’t have a sharp knife to remove the remaining rubber so was resorting to fire) Plus burning rubber stinks!
The 4[SUP]th[/SUP]mount was reasonably dry at this point so I fitted the rubber and here was the finished item.
As from the previous pictures you can see the front of the car is extremely low and that the wishbones are not in a good position at all! So I decided to raise them up 15mm to see how the car sits.
Before:
After:
After doing this I wanted to play with the AST’s as I didn’t really get the opportunity to do this yesterday. This is the angle of the suspension strut at the following position on the AST’s.
The reason I took this picture is because I was hoping to show a before and after shot. Unfortunately the 4[SUP]th[/SUP] mount beat me as it did not want to sit against the sub frame and gearbox in a nice enough way to bolt it together. I tried everything and eventually gave up.
I then lowered the car on the ground and was still not happy with how the car was sitting so I raised the car another 10mm.
Side Angle of the car:
Quick engine bay shot showing AST positioning:
I then turned my attention to the middle exhaust mount. I am using a ‘D’ shackle as I saw someone on Cliosport do the same thing with exactly the same powerflow exhaust rubber. I don’t mind copying a good idea if I see one lol.
Bolt in place and rubber on ‘D’ shackle:
Next thing on the agenda was the cooling system as I had a few hoses that needed to be modified to ensure that they fit the car. Plus as I am nt running a heater matrix I needed to put the pipework in such a way that it would route back on itself. My dad had recently replaced the shower. It jsut so happened that the pipe that the shower head runs up and down on was the correct size and made from copper. RESULT.
I will let the pictures do the talking:
The only remaining hose that was not fitted was the bottom rad hose but I have addressed that a bit later on.
Bit of Front bumper modification for the oil cooler.
Before:
After:
I then removed the front bumper, front slam panel and grille so I could get better access to the oil cooler and bottom rad hose.
I then made the following for the oil cooler to stop it swinging and potientially getting damaged on part of the car.
I then made the following bracket to solve my bottom rad hose problem:
I will let the pics do the talking.
The reason I had to do this is because the mounting points for the 172 rad are wider than the 16v rad. Because of the width difference the bottom rad hose was too far to the driver’s side of the car to reach the radiator. This was a nice simple fix and I was a lot happier doing it this way rather than modifying the water hoses.
The last thing I did for the night before packing up was move the oil cooler mounting holes closer to the radiatior as the rubber mounts that hold the top were constantly under tension which I did not think was ideal.
Much better now.
Below is the list that I had planned to get complete by the end of the week.
- Suspension on the car and set up reasonably well. (Job for Friday) [Now complete apart from rear ride height will address when everything in the car.]
- Exhaust mounts to turn up and get them on the car along with the back part of the exhaust. (Now have but need to refit petrol tank, heatshields and handbrake cables before hand)[No more progress as yet]
- Main hoop welded in the car. (Another two hours and should be done) [No more progress as yet]
- Front door bars and ‘A’ pillars mocked in place ready for welding in. (god knows) [No more progress as yet]
- Fit the remaining door locks. (when they turn up 5 minute job) [Done]
- Finish the cooling system pipework (Once I figure out how I am going to get around the problem of the bottom hose not lining up to the rad) [Done]
- Manifold Flange cut out ready to be surface ground at work. (If my mate gets his new compressor then I will be doing this Saturday afternoon) [50% there]
Not as much as I would hope but a few more niggle sorted out. Also I’m not going to bodge this car in anyway just to meet the deadlines. Deadlines are meant to be missed lol
Thanks for reading, comment always welcome.
